Funny thing is that 3 years post-picture, my hair's almost that style again.

Welcome, everyone new! I’m not a mom blog and not a food blog and not even a design blog. This piece of virtual real estate is about an ordinary life in South Jersey. And that picture of me on the BlogHer page is easily 3 years old. I should update that. Heh!

But without further ado…the Friday Five! Today’s topic is “Horsies!”

1. What are your feelings about horses?

I LOVE horses, but I’m not in the area (geographically or financially) to interact with them regularly. But when I was small, I had some of those “Breyer” knockoff horses. They’d play with Barbie’s horse, who was named Dallas at the time. And who is apparently so stinking old that he’s in a museum.

2. How far would you have to go if you wanted to ride a merry-go-round?
Campbell’s Field – home of the Camden Riversharks – is about 5 miles away. But I wouldn’t do that because I’m one of those fogies that believe that if you go to a ballgame, you should watch the ballgame.

3. When did you last eat something containing pinto beans?
I had a Chipotle burrito on Wednesday. Nom.

4. How’s your mane?
Teriffic, actually! I trimmed off the dead ends and after over nine months of trying to grow out my natural color I bought a bottle of hair dye and my color looks natural and even! (Garnier Light Golden Brown aka “Brown Sugar”)

5. When did you last go hoarse?
All week long, as I’ve been suffering from an early appearance of my yearly June cold.

I used the Google AdSense program for 2 years, and I didn’t even earn enough to get my first $100 payment.

Here’s my stance on ads…I don’t mind them at all. If I (or more likely someone else) can earn a few bucks for a future rainy day just with a few blocks of code, then that’s great. I’m also completely in favor of the recent FTC ruling that requires bloggers who review items to admit they’re received the items for free if that’s the case. Many bloggers are upset, claiming that professional reviewers don’t have to disclose they received review copies of products.

The differences is that when you read the newspaper (and we all do, yes?) you KNOW that person you’re reading is a paid reviewer and that s/he’s trying that product out for free or is reimbursed for the cost. When you read someone’s personal blog and they start mentioning a product over and over, you think they’re a fan of the product. If they happen to omit the fact that they were flown to NYC for a weekend courtesy of the company that makes that product, it adds a certain shadiness to the blog. And I don’t like shadiness.

So here’s to the beginning of (hopefully) a beautiful little partnership.

In completely unrelated news, I have to get rid of the “Beach” theme for Gmail, as it depresses me every night when the sun sets on the theme. I get that icky “last day of vacation” feeling.

I was nervous. I was hoping I’d have someone to talk to. Mostly, I was hoping that I didn’t waste all of that money. So as I tried to plug the dripping faucet with my toe, I visualized a fantastic, inspiring and FUN conference.

And it so was! (Holy crap! That visualization thing WORKS?) There were two “tracks” to choose from, along with an all-day Geek Lab that you could drop into at any time. I picked the sessions that comprised the Beginners’ Track. Even with five years of blogging under my belt, I felt I could always learn more.

The sessions were:

• Blogging Basics: I Blog, Therefore I Am… figuring out your blogging mojo
• Blogging Basics: 6 Steps to Personalize, Polish & Promote Your Blog
• Blogging Basics: Managing Information Overload: How to find your blogging community

The sessions were fantastic. I took away many ideas I can use for both ladygypsy.net, but for my World of Warcraft blog as well. This old girl (the blog, not me, thankyouverymuch) could use a bit of spit and polish.

Not a redesign, but a refocusing. I don’t have to change what I write about, but I can put a little more thought into my posts and not make each one a massive brain-dump. I can categorize and tag my subject matter better. I can throw up my hands in surrender and FINALLY put my contact info on here.

But if the sessions didn’t exist at all, I’d have STILL paid the conference fee just to mingle with the attendees. Many were just like me – yappy on a keyboard but a bit shy socially. Get a bunch of geeky shy women together, and soon we’re laughing and talking like we were old friends. There were so many stories to hear and so many women brimming with ideas and potential. Some were just starting out. Others were literally changing their world AND ours via their writing. You’d have to be dead not to walk away inspired.

And the food was by FAR the best food I had ever consumed at a meeting. Usually, your afternoon snack at a meeting is a cup of M&Ms. We had hot soft pretzels, mini corn dogs, cups of trail mix AND ice cream bars. Top that!

The ride back on Sunday was uneventful and MUCH shorter. I hit the local Starbucks at 7:55am. I was on the road by 8:15am, and was home by 2:30pm with only one 15-minute break in Connecticut and a bit of a delay in the Bronx. Having listened to all my saved podcasts on the way to Boston, I sang along to the Mama Mia soundtrack almost the entire way home with a break for Sugarland. (It took almost 2 full plays of “Genevieve” to get me across the George Washington Bridge.)

It was so worth the trip and the money.

Here’s a list of some of the wonderful women I met – I’ll be adding them to my sidebar in a “BlogHer Boston” section.

Alicia – Oh2122
Busy Bee Lifestyle
Candelaria – CandelariaSilva.com
Dawn – Coming to a Nursery Near You and My Tasty Space
Diva Toolbox
Dina – This Marriage Thing
Dorene – Occasional Rambling
Elisa – Elisa Camahort’s Personal Weblog
Goddess in Progress
Jory – Pause
Kerri – Six Until Me
Kristy – She Just Walks Around With It
Laurie – Laurie Writes
Liz – Inventing My Life
Marie – Boston Bibliophile
Maris – In Good Taste
Megan – A Girl Must Shop
Megan – Megan’s Minute
Sally – Sex and the Knitty
Suzanne – Off the Beaten (Subway) Track: New York’s Best Unusual Attractions

And my destination makes it worth the while
Pushing through the darkness still another mile
I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels
When I know the time is right for me
I’ll cross the stream – I have a dream

Longtime readers will remember that once upon a time, I had his job, and he worked for me. Then I gave up that job so I could be techy again. Now it’s open again. And in my hot little hands, I have a self-nomination form.

And so the debate begins. Do I go for the management job? I’m going to be frank and it’s going to sound pompous. I KNOW that job. I can DO that job. Well…except maybe the sales part, since they’re looking for a sales manager. And I’ve never been good at that. Then again, I’m not terrifically sure that I want to train a new manager on the reports, the tech, etc. Might be easier just to do it myself.

So I prayed on it (yes, I do that) and I did some research. I’m telling you, people. Keep a blog. Even if you keep it private. Even if it’s in one of those old-fangled paper journals. Do it. Because I went back and read between the lines of my 2005 and 2006 work-related entries and remembered just how much I HATED that job.

In conclusion, I’m going to give up the opportunity to regain the “fame”, “fortune”, parking spot, master key, and seat at The Big Weekly Meeting. Because I like my job JUST the way it is right now.

In other news, tomorrow I’m heading to the Boston area for BlogHer. I’m a bit apprehensive about the meeting because I won’t know anyone there and what I want the absolute LEAST is to sit by myself the whole time and have no one talk to me. I am still just as insecure as I was when I was 12. When nobody talked to me. Le sigh.

Other than the social paralysis, I’m stoked to be in a meeting with a bunch of bloggy chicks. I want to be a better writer. I want to polish this little website of mine until it shines like a sapphire. And in the grand tradition of networking…I created business cards!

Other than the font, which I will use until I die since I spent $30 for it back in 2003*, you’ll notice it looks nothing like my site! Huzzah for design continuity!

Le sigh.

BUT…I ordered them on Monday from nextdayflyers.com. I paid $40 for them – mostly shipping. It would be about the same had I picked a crummy black and white stock design from Office Max and waited a week to get them done.

I will try my best to blog from BlogHer on Saturday. If I can get a seat near an outlet, I’m golden. Otherwise the lappy battery won’t last more than 2 hours. There should be plenty of outlets. I hope. Wish me luck!

(if you’re going to Blogher Boston, please talk to me. or email me at the address on the business card image. thank you.)

* When I die, if I end up with a headstone, I’m going to request THAT font be used to engrave my name on it. Years later I can’t believe I spent $30 on a font for personal use. That’s what happens when you marry a pharmacist, people. You spend money on crazy shit.

Here’s this week’s Friday Five: HACKED!

1. When did someone last break something of yours?
On Labor Day, in the Peddler’s village parking lot, someone backed into my car. He scratched the heck out of my driver’s side rear panel, but left a note with his name/phone number. I was a bonehead and decided to do the “right” thing and go through GEICO. They were happy to pursue, and since I pay them heaps of cash each year, I was happy to let them. So I sat back and waited for them to tell me what to do next.

Unfortunately, the guy won’t deal with them at all, preferring to pay me out of pocket. So now I have to call this guy and go through heaps of extra inconvenience. If I go outside of GEICO, I don’t get the rental car coverage or anything that I, you know, pay for. If I deal with him out of pocket and go through GEICO, he’s going to have to pony up at least my $500 deductible and my rates will go up anyway, right?

Not to mention, he probably hates my guts for going to my insurance company in the first place. And I hate confrontation. So bleah.

2. When did you last play hackysack, if ever?
Never!

3. What was your most dramatic haircut like?
Back in college I had it really short, to the point where it was wedgy-looking in the back, and the stylist actually had to take clippers to the back of my neck for strays. I wore a baseball cap for months.

4. Hacking is basically breaking through the security that protects a computer or a website. What’s the closest you’ve come to doing something similar in real life?
Somebody here in my building never changed their default wireless router settings. So the network name is linksys and the password is admin. So I use their wireless connection from time to time.

5. In the world of stand-up comedy, a hack is a comic who steals jokes from other comics. Have you ever known a hack in your own field?
I’m a web designer! We’re all hacks! We always go online for snippets of code to solve problems, or for free javascript to do neat things.

~~~
Did you know that next week is October? Even after my planned days off — 2 for Boston/Blogher*, 3 for trip to see WM’s family in Michigan, 1 for Black Friday — I still have 5 days left. Our vacation days don’t roll over (and really, who knows if we’ll all be employed by December anyway?) so I decided to take today off. As usual, it’s crappy out. But I’m headed out to lunch with a friend, and will swing by Target afterward. So I’ll get my puttering in.

~~~
This Sunday, weather permitting, we’ll be at the Pennsauken Fall Festival (PDF). It promises the three “Cs” of a successful outdoor event, crafts, classic cars, and carny food. Okay, that’s four.

Have a wonderful weekend!

*I’m terrified about this. I won’t know anybody there, and I get very shy around people I don’t know. I feel like I need to be there though.